Latest / Accidental Bible Scholar / Let's Dance: God's Design for Marriage – Love, Respect & the Crazy Cycle

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Let's Dance: God's Design for Marriage – Love, Respect & the Crazy Cycle · Accidental Bible Scholar

• Randy: Hello, I'm Jeff Ward and welcome back to the Accidental Bible Scholar Podcast. I'm here with Randy Spear. This is our regular released episode number thirty-one. I think that's the first time Randy's heard me say what number we're on. This will be the thirty first episode regular release, which we do on Thursdays. There's been a few extras in between. The one about Cobar Towers was in there. One other one. I can't remember what it was. But thanks for joining us. And we are like my kids would say, literally glad. That you are listening. According to John seventeen three, eternal life is knowing that knowing God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. And it's our hope and prayer that this podcast encourages you in your walk and relationship with him. We hope that you're able to understand who you are in Jesus Christ. That is sons and daughters of the King, that you're join heirs with Jesus, and that we have a Father who lavishes every spiritual blessing on us. That was earlier in Ephesians. Yep. Among many other things. If you have any questions, criticism or topics that you'd like to hear Randy discuss, email us at contact at accidentalbiblescholar dot com. Our podcast, you can find it on Apple Podcasts, Apple Mu or Amazon Music, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and YouTube. That has video as well. And we release a new episode every Thursday. If you go to our website, which isn't completed, but it's functional, you can find our podcast and links to though those sites and on that. website itself. That is www.accidental bible scholar dot com. Today we're going to talk about parenting. Marriage. Which is no marriage. Did I miss it up or did you get that? Shoot, I mistitled it. We'll do parenting later. Let's do marriage and then parenting 'cause that's the order it normally should go in. Right. but we're going to talk about that in in as we've stepped through Ephesians. That's the next topic. And we're excited. So we're going to do marriage, parenting. spiritual warfare for the next few weeks. Yep. And I say we get started, Randy. All Ms. Do Okay. you were on a roll. I didn't want to say that that that's a podcast right there. I know. Seventeen minutes probably so far. Okay. We're talking marriage. And I call this lesson Let's Dance. I I taught a a class on it once and I forget how many sections it was and so I pulled out a section and modified it to make it look like or fit Love and respect, which is what Ephesians fives talks about. So, Jeff, how long have you been married? Dude. Dude. I should have asked that this year. You want me to tell you thirty. This year'll be thirty. Yeah. That's in this month, fourteen days. Wow, don't forget that. You got that's I'm glad I said something. The blank look on your face was a little startling. Well, for a minute there I had to explain it. Yeah, thirty years. All right, yeah. We'll be forty this year. So in November we'll be forty. So Wow, you got married young. I did, I was just a little kid, yeah. yeah. And I if I interject, this this is some of the best Sunday school lessons you taught that I remember that really stand out. Well you're still married, so that helped take okay. Yeah. So I say that because you know, we have some experience, but we obviously I still don't have it all together. But you know, I I enjoy being married is the joy of my life or one of One one of I mean, so I think it's awesome. Yes, sir. I'm still I have never quite gotten over it, even four years later, you know. Yeah. But anyway. so some of the stuff we say, we've got some experience behind it, both good and bad experience. I mean sometimes you learn it the easy way, sometimes you learn it the hard way. Sometimes hard way. Yeah, I'd prefer the easy way, but that doesn't always work. Anyway, the the last verse we're gonna cover Ephesians 5, 22 through 33. And the last verse is kind of a summary, verse 33, and we'll spend some time on love and respect. But it says, Nevertheless, each one of you must also love his own wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. So that's kind of where we're going right there, love and respect. And we're gonna spend a lot of time or most of the time on this. Perfect. So to kind of set up the let's dance, you know, marriage is much bigger than you and I, much bigger than me and Angela. It's there's you know, it has origins all way back at the beginning of Genesis. It's it is originally designed almost maybe not originally. it is certainly designed now to mirror the church and the relationship between church and Jesus Christ. I think it goes back even further than that as far as original design and and I used I stole kind of a concept from Jonathan Edwards. He w he lived in the eighteen hundreds. He was a you and he were friends growing up together. Yeah, he and I he and I grew up together. he was I think he was a pastor and a philosopher, you know, so he's a he's a big thinker, but he came with the idea of the grand dance, and so that's why I said let's dance. That's why I named the marriage thing. So he he he pulls out of scripture that each person of the Trinity, they each glorify each other. So the Son glorifies the Father, the Son glorifies the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit you know, glorifies those both. Well glorify, if you look up the the term of glorify, it means to be centered on to the point of even orbiting around. So if you are glorifying someone, they are the center of your universe. If you are center s you're centered on them, you're orbiting around them. He goes, Well if you have three persons, each of them glorifying or orbiting around the other then they he that creates this thing what he calls the grand dance. And so that's the Trinity doing this this grand dance of of each of them focused on the other. And as a quick side note, if God wasn't three persons, he couldn't be, or multiple persons, he couldn't you couldn't say God is love, because God 'cause love requires an object of the love, right? Needs it love in a big sense is to know and to be known. Well, if there's no other being, you can't do that. So You know, and and rightfully so, nobody claims that Allah is is love, you know, but the the bi the the creator of the universe is a triune God, so he is love. So they didn't he didn't make Adam and Eve in order to so he'd have an object of his love, so therefore but there was he was already love, the triune God. but what he did, he he he created Adam and Eve to join in the dance. So They would be orbiting around each other, and then that orbit would be orbiting around the Godhead, if you want to think about that. So it's he's just trying to add more and more players to the grand dance to share in the joy and the love and the and the glorif glorifying each other there to do that. And then in Genesis three, tragedy stuck struck. And and I've to keep it in the idea of of the grand dance is Adam and Eve just stopped dancing. They go, mm-mm. This this whole shebang orbits around me. Right. I'm not orbiting around anybody. This is it's all about me. And so this they became self-centered, self-uh focused, and they exited the dance. And they actually your self-centeredness or our self-centeredness demands that everything orbit around us. So the invitation of the gospel is to return to the dance. To return to glorifying and loving God, to glorifying and loving people, and start to focus on that to the point that Jesus said in Mark 8, 34, he says, to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. So denying yourself, that would be becoming other centered instead of self-centered. Take up your cross means to die to your old man. We studied that. Romans Six six says our old man was crucified, Galatians two twenty says, I've been crucified with Christ now no longer live. So die to yourself, die to the world, die to the appetites of your flesh, being the your sinner, and then follow Jesus. So his way is your way, his purpose is your purpose, his life is your life. And so that's invitation in marriage too, is to let's dance. That's the point of the the title of the lesson is let's dance. So join back into the grand dance and let's dance with each other, and then that My marriage should be about my spouse. Right. Not about me. Right. That one shift right there is probably the worth the price of admission. If we could just walk away and go, I deny myself. I'm not self centered. I'm and my marriage is not about me. My marriage is about my wife in my case or or spouse in general. It's about for the wives. So And it's almost if you think of the Grand Dance, I think of the Moon. The moon well does the moon orbit around the Earth or the Sun? Well, it's both. Right. If we were to draw it out, we'd find that it's orbiting around the Earth, but it also is orbiting around centered on the Sun. Well, when I say I'm going to glorify and honor my wife or be make our marriage centered on her instead of me. I'm not saying it's not centered on God, right? We're still centered on God, but we're in this grand dance that Jonathan Edwards described. So it's neat. I like that. Yeah so husbands Husbands also is the Christ figure in the in the Christ in the church and h as that figure, he is to be the sacrificial leader and and sacrificially love his wife. The wife is the church figure within that relationship, and she is to surrender to and res and you know surrendering to and respecting her husband. again, being concerned with your spouse's needs over your own. and this I would say even if your spouse is self-centered or doesn't buy into what you're talking about, I'm not saying We're g I'm my I'm gonna center my marriage and make my marriage about my wife as long as she'll make it about me. That's really self centeredness. Right. True, true non self centered and true denying myself would be I'm gonna make make my marriage about her. whether she makes the marriage about me or not. Right. Right. So and I have this vertical relationship. With God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and their love, and I am fully loved. And as someone who's fully loved, I can I'm now free to love. Yeah. in the horizontal. as someone who's fully forgiven, I'm free to forgive. Same thing as somebody who's fully accepted, then I'm free to fully accept her. and if we get right down to I think we mentioned this before, but you know, if you're not fully loved, you can't genuinely love somebody else. Because because you would if you're lacking you would be you're loving them to get something back from them. So love and marriage is truly a sacrificial love is that and I can do that because of what Christ has done in me and how much he loves me, right? Same thing with righteous. You know, I hear people talking about practical righteousness, like you're not really righteous unless you achieve certain things. Well, I cannot do a good deed unless I'm already righteous. Because a true good deed, according to scripture, in involves your motives and your want to's and at the heart level. It's not just external level. The Pharisees thought it was external level and Jesus came back and said no if you hate a man in your heart you murdered him. Right. It's the same as murder. So same thing if I am doing things in order to become righteous, it's not really a good act or a righteous act because there's a ulterior motive motive to it. So anyway that that would be the stuff I'm gonna talk about today is is probably comes under the heading of deny yourself comes under your heading of your relationship with the Lord being such that you know that you're fully loved, accepted, and forgiven. And therefore you can now f we're free to to provide that to our spouse, to love them unconditionally. okay. another thing is it's interesting that in this section of scripture that we're told to do different things. So The husbands are told to love the wife, and the wife is told to respect the husband. That's interesting to me. You would think that it'd just be the same, or at least first glance, until you understand that, and we'll go read that here in a minute, but that God made us male and female. We are both made in God's image, but we were also designed differently. Since we're designed differently, we have different needs. We have different wants. And when I taught this class, I can't do it here, but when I taught this class, I pulled I brought in like a a plastic red film size of a notebook or tight sheet of typing paper and it was red and I wrote in a red marker on the on the sheet and you can't read it if you put the filter over the red it just looks like a blank sheet and then you pull the filter off and now you can see whatever was written on the on the sheet because the the filter filters out the words that are written in the same color. And my point is if I can fool your eyes with just a simple colored piece of plastic. This is a rhetorical question. Is it possible that our gender and our personality and the way we see things can actually filter out legitimate concerns and needs and things that our our spouse has 'cause we're different. Yes. I don't know about you and Christy, but Angela and I are different. Yes. All right. So here I got a quick story about the about the differences and I just can't get past them. But anyway, the you know, the most dangerous question for me is not, you know, does this dress make me look fat? That's not that's not the dangerous I know the right answer to that one. That's an easy one. I got that one. It's the it's the my my wife is a bit of a decorator of our house. So for me it's the did you notice anything different? I'm like, no. I can't I don't know the right answer ahead of time on that one. And I got about half a second to come up with the right answer or she'll see right through it and she'll know the know that I'm you know giving her an honest answer, right? So just as an example, one day we had she asked me that question. I'm like no, I didn't. And it's she's like, Well, it's been here for like a week. I'm like, okay. So she had new flowers on the t table in our breakfast or in our off our kitchen. There's this table that she had this new arrangement of flowers. You know, I walked past it a hundred times a day. Then she had a candlestick, I forget where it is, and she had new pillows on the couch. I'm like, Okay. Wow, those are really neat. Awesome. Man, no but no, I hadn't noticed. I've learned don't say well that's interesting. Yeah, that's that's not good. That's not not taking that. That's kinda interesting. Yeah. You see right through that. But yeah, so I c I can't do that. So I mean I just honestly appreciative of our way our house looks, but do I see new stuff? Not necessarily. It doesn't like trip right triple little switch in my mind. that's new. So the story is we have two nieces and this is about ten or eleven, twelve years ago and we're and we and their dad's out of town town so we're gonna they're gonna stay with us for, you know, a week or whatever. And so we go get across town. We come in into our drive I mean into the garage. And in the garage I'm driving, Angela's in the Passenger seat. There's four-year-old Olivia behind me on my side in the back seat. And then there's 10-year-old Zoe behind Angela. And we pull up and we go in the garage. I stop, and right to my left, right outside the driver's door, is the door that goes into the into our house. So Zoe leaves the car. I mean, as soon as I get in the park, boom, she's out. She takes off, she runs around the back of the car and she's going up and going around the house. Probably before she gets there, but just as she's getting there and opening the door, she remembers that she's got o all of her stuff in her car and she needs to go get all that stuff out of the car. So as she's stopping and turn around, she opens the door about six to twelve inches. That's not an exaggeration. Cracks the door really. And in less than a second it's open. Boom, it slams shut. 'Cause now she's gonna run back around to her car over there. Well, right behind me is Olivia who's like gathering her stuff and getting out of her car seat or whatever. So the door's been open for less than a second, less than twelve inches. And that that's not an exaggeration. And And Angela and I hear the boom, the the c the slam door and and me, Olivia. Angela, I love the new flowers on your table. And I'm like, my goodness. I look over to Angela and I go, There's not no way I can compete with that. That's all I said to her. I go because she noticed the new stuff through a crack in the door in less than a second. Yep. And of course she walks in, I love the new pillows. look at that candlestick. That's new. That looks really good, Angela. And I'm like Okay, so there's some gender differences, I guess. Yes. At least it's not just you. It's not just me. And and so Angela and Olivia are on the same wavelength and I sometime am not. But we're designed differently and our design f affects us. I put after the fall, we see things only from our own point of view, but the gospel reforms us or transforms us, redeems us from the inside out. And now we can see things from our spouse's point of view. We are free to do that, and I think that's something. Yeah. significant. I had this one more and then we'll get into it. But I had this business idea. My business idea would be to go to develop a course that teaches the ladies how to love their husband. And then I would do the opposite and I'd go teach a course that teaches the husbands how to respect their wife. The good news is I'd make tons of money because the wives would be just drink it up. The men would drink it up. I could ha I had this course ready to go and then they would leave let's say we, you know, spent all day Saturday at some church somewhere, you know, and When everybody left, the hus husbands would be fired up about going home to respect their wives and the lo the wives it it would have just rung everybody's bell. The wives would have been going, Yeah, man, I'm gonna go home and have all these techniques to love my husband. The problem is, while that would make a lot of money because it resonates with your customers, it wouldn't do anything to help your help their marriages because the wives pretty much already know how to love. They need to learn to respect and the The men already know how to respect. That's kind of the language they speak. Right. And they would go home and and be speaking a language that that was going right over the top of their wives' head and the wives be doing the same thing. So but that's not what the command of scripture says, right? The command of scripture says opposite. It says husbands love your wives And wives respect your husbands. So we'll get down to that at the end of this, but I do want to step through each of these and talk through some things, because there's some bigger things than just marriage here, obviously. But anyway, let's go to let's read twenty you want to read? Yes. How about you read twenty-two through twenty-four in Echesians Ephesians chapter five? Okay. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is a head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body. But as a church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Did you say through twenty-five? Twenty-four. Yep, that was good, man. Thank you. All right. Here's the first question. It says wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord. So why is a wife to submit to her husband? Because he's the head of the family. Not because he's smarter, not because he's more valuable. Not because he has more worth. not because you know, he's better than her. Yep. It's because God has set up for the husband as the head of the household. That's it. And if we can get over there and go, Okay, I got that. every organization needs a leader. Right. If it's gonna survive, if it's gonna flourish, right? And the Lord said, We're not gonna do this via election, we're not gonna do this via IQ test. I've just designated the husband is the head of the household. And the good news is is he's designed each of us to fit the roles right that he has laid out for us. And I will say a few things here. Satan loves to take everything the Lord has structured and turn it upside down. Yes. Right? He was s subordinate to God and he wanted to be above God. And he does that everywhere. So he wants nothing more than to take the household and flip it upside down. Right. Make it dysfunctional. Make it dysfunctional. Yeah. Put the wife as the head of the head of the husband. That's what he would like to do. And and that's what he's obviously you know, full throttle doing, right? He also wants the kids to be the head of both. The parents, both the husband and the wife. Right? So and I you've seen it, I've seen it. We've seen family and households where the kids are in charge. They run the show. Yeah. you know, just as a quick side note, 'cause I might not mention this in the next one, the parenting, but there's nothing more scary to a five year old than to be in charge. To be in charge. Yeah. Yeah. I mean they can't put that into English. Right. And they'll still fight you or, you know, at every turn if in until you show that they're not. And they and you look at and you go, they want to be in charge. No, there's nothing more scary 'cause they know they know their ability. And and a lot of our insecurity in our children is because we don't aren't leading but anyway. a quick side note here, addictions. Addictions are a there's a lot of things going on there, but one of the things, it's it's flipping things upside down. Yeah. you know, I hear people say, Well, you shouldn't smoke, or smoking's a sin, or smoking's wrong. well, why is that? Well, it's because you know, you're you're not taking care of the temple your body is the temple, the Holy Spirit, and you're not taking care of your body. Okay, what about a non believer? They don't have the Holy Spirit. Their body's not the temple. Is it okay for them? No. Because in Genesis chapter one, man is put in, man and woman, mankind is put in dominion over plants, animals, fish of the sea, birds of the air. And so if you're addicted to tobacco, guess what? You're being you're under the dominion of a plant. Yeah. That is upside down to what God's designed. So anyway, that's that's free of charge. You won't see that on No, that's great. That's just a great way to look at it. That it's not right. Because it's not the way God set it up. It is not the way it was was set up exactly. Let's talk to a few things here. Marriage is a picture of Christ in the church. We see that in this section and then in the following sections as well. That Christ The head of church in the same way, that's why in the same way the husband is the head of the family or of the wife and the and the and the family, right? So, and that's throughout scripture. God uses the the family to or marriage to depict the reality of Christ in the church. Abraham sends out a servant to go look for a bride for Isaac. And comes back with Rebecca. That one story right there is the entire story of the Bible. The father seeking a bride for the son, and the servant is the Holy Spirit. Yeah. you know, Jacob works two sets of seven years for Rachel. So it's Rachel's, it's Jacob doing the work. Christ has done the work. Yeah. And now we rest in him. Rachel then rests in Jacob. Hosea, what a picture of Hosea. Hosea. His wife, his adulterous wife, won't stay home. She gets sold into slavery. He goes to the slave market and buys her back. Yeah. You know, he redeems her. such a great picture there. And and and that's what Paul's talking to us in Ephesians. Again, we're kind of using this to look into marriage, but but the truth's here to help us understand Christ and the church. I put here kind of going back to the wife and I echo it's s sad because some wives will follow their boss all day long, their male boss, maybe if it's a male, and then come home and fight for the control of the family. And interesting too. And the contrast is a spiritual issue is a result of a spirit. My question is, do you think that's the Holy Spirit or some other spirit that is setting that up? So a quick note before we go on. this this scripture is about the wife following her husband. It is not about all women following all men. Okay? I've heard some, you know, you see inklings of that. That's just not what that's reading in the scripture something that's not there. Yep. but the the husband is to be the head of the household, okay? In the same way that Christ is the church, and and that'll that's a huge responsibility that we'll talk about here in a minute. Other thing I'd say if you're s if the the wife's safety is in question, get out. Seek and seek counsel for coming back. Okay. Yep. we're not talking about staying in a dangerous situation. Right. okay. Questions, comments, or anything you want to throw in there for this one? No. Okay. Very clear. Thanks. All right. Let's read the next section. When you're ready. Okay. Twenty five through let's go through thirty. Twenty five through thirty. Okay. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for her to sanctify her by cleansing her with the washing of the water by the word, so that he may present the church to himself as glorious, not having a stain or wrinkle or any blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one has ever hated his own body, but he feeds it and takes care of it, just as Christ also does a church, because we are members of his body. All right. Paul continues the the side by side analogy, maybe is the right word, but it's actually more concrete than that, that this marriage between man and woman Is like the marriage between Christ and the church. that that this marriage is to follow, mimic, and display the relationship of Christ, the church. What did Christ do? He sacrificially loves, he sacrificially gives himself and gave himself. He takes care of the church. He provides for the church. All these are pictures in the verse of of what the husband is to do for the to for the wife and in the first few words in verse twenty eight says, In the same way. So in the same way, husbands, talking about how Christ is to the church. So everything that that that Christ has done for the church, we are to do for our wives, as far as sacrificially loving her and taking care of her, providing for her and So in the same way, husbands love your wives. I put here most Christian husbands, I would say, if we took a survey, most of would say, Yeah, would you take a bullet for your wife? Yeah, I'd take a bullet for my wife. I can legitimately say yeah, I would do that. Mm-hmm. Okay. But will you take a five extra minutes when you come in the door from work? to listen, look in her eye, face to face, listen and understand what she's trying to say to you. Or if you're in some sort of conflict where you stop trying to reword everything she's saying in her in your brain while she's talking and just really try to listen to her. Yeah. Yeah. That's not taking a bullet. It's probably a lot harder. It is a lot harder maybe but But not really. But it didn't have the same cost, right? But we'd say, yeah, I'll take but well how about that? What about the ten or fifteen things that would take you less than thirty or sixty seconds each that you could do every day to help make things better for her? What about standing up for her to your teenager or to your neighbors or to your parents? what about preferring her to above all others, above your buddies? Yeah. what about spending time something doing something she enjoys? what about allocating more of the budget to her interest instead of yours? Yeah. so those are all things that that that at at one degree or less than taking a bullet, but we don't bother doing Right. And we need to change our attitude and go, hey, this is about her, not about me. I'm here to take care of her. And so anyway, there's a yeah, we talk about some other scripture in a little bit. But anyway. So yeah, We'll think through that a little bit more here in just second. He's Paul is still talking about the church. He makes an interesting statement there. He says that the church is cleansed, let's say to sanctify her. That means to make holy, by cleansing her with the washing of the water by the word. So let's step out of marriage here for just a second. Paul lets us in on A truth that Jesus also talks about in John 15, that we are cleaned by his word. We are there's a washing of of his word. So he says in John 15, the first part there, he says, You're already clean because of my word. So and here he's saying, Paul says the same thing is that the church is made holy by the cleansing of the washing of the word. You know, when Peter When Jesus went to wash Peter's feet, he wouldn't let him, right? And then Jesus explained, Well, if y if I don't wash your feet, you don't have a part in me. He goes, then wash me from head toe to head to toe. He goes, No, no, you're already clean, you just need your feet washed. So that's a picture of I think of of Redemption, baptism, salvation, where you're washed fully, you're fully forgiven. But then by his word, there's a daily cleansing of our feet. That we when we're walking in a fallen world, we pick up dirt on our feet. And the cleansing, the washing that Jesus is talking about there is the washing he later talks about in John 15, and that Pate Paul is talking about here. We're cleansed by the by the washing of God's word. So when we're daily in God's word, you may not realize it, but you're being cleansed and you're being saved. sanctified as you're doing doing that that process. That's the you're already clean like Peter was, but you just need your feet cleaned. And that's what Jesus does by his word. That's great. There's another spiritual law here. I like to when I'm reading the Bible, I like to find out and and look at spiritual laws because they matter and they and they govern, okay? Like gra gravity governs, you know. The law of gravity, we can't really get around it. We can't explain it, so that's why we just call it a law. It just works. And we can we can put numbers to it and formulas to it, but we don't know the why behind it, so that's why we call it a law, right? same thing here's here's the law. The last part of twenty Verse 20 says, He who loves his wife loves himself. And I'm not trying to turn around and make this selfish, but but there is something there. If you take care of your wife, you're simultaneously taking care of you. If you are sacrificially loving your wife, you're you're actually taking care of yourself too. So if you are lacking in some areas, Peter will tell us that if our prayers are hindered, it one of the reasons could be because we're treating our wife, our wife wrong. This is also saying here, if things aren't working out, if I'm not loving if I don't if I got something wrong with myself, it could be one of the roots could be the way I'm treating my wife. let's see. Keep going. Okay. Let's go to Ephesians five, verses thirty-one through thirty-three. Thirty-one to thirty-three. Yep. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. The mystery is great, but I am actually speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each of you must also love his own wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two become one flesh. So there's this one flesh thing that happens between a man and a woman. And Jesus says, it the profound mystery is it. I mean, Paul says, the profound mystery is this, that that's actually what's going on with the church and Christ. We are one. Okay. First Corinthians six seventeen talks about us being our spirit being one with the spirit of Christ. there's a couple of different things that talk about our physical body being the temple of the Holy Spirit. Then there's another place talks about the church being the the residence of the Holy Spirit. They're they're both true, right? So that's what marriage is. But let's look at the the marriage itself. That's the profound mystery that we're gonna kinda s not spend much more time on because we're now we're gonna get in a little bit of the nuts and bolts of respecting and loving. But note that the man is the one directed to leave. Okay. If there's in-law problems, it could be because the man haven't hasn't left. The man is is commanded to leave. And he's commanded to be united. Be united into one. So that's a connection spiritually, emotionally, socially, and physically. And again, that command is to the husband. I'll say something real quick here. Sex is the covenant sealing mechanism that the Lord has created for a man and woman in marriage to become one and a lifelong covenant to become one. So when he created sex, he created this mechanism that not just provides children and reproduction, but it also provides this mechanism of oneness within the family or within the marriage. it this is a here's just something important to understand. It's important that you help your kids understand this, is that you know, he didn't create sex and go, this is gonna be something really good, and you know, I'm just gonna frustrate the living daylights out of them by putting a bunch of restrictions on it. And that'll s and we'll just see if they can follow these these laws. God I don't know of any law or rule or command of God that is arbitrary. Right. What he did was he prov he he created this thing that is the covenant sealing mechanism of the marriage covenant, and it and it made makes two hearts into one. Right. And he goes, okay, this is going to be awesome. wait a minute. I better put some restrictions on it so that you don't hurt yourself. Right. A guardrail, a speed limit, whatever, all the things we have in place that protect ourselves. This is no different. And our kids need to be told it's not that you know, sex before marriage is bad and don't do it. Well th it's more than that. It joins two hearts together. Right. And when you have multiple sexual partners, your heart gets joined and then it gets ripped apart as you go on to the next one. And many more many times of that or or of it doesn't take very many times of that before to survive, your psyche to survive has to heart your heart to survive has to put calluses over itself. And so over time that it loses its ability to join two hearts together. And now you go, now I'm ready to settle down and only have one partner forever, one marriage partner and and it doesn't it's lost its ability to join. Right. Now the go Lord is gracious and he can heal that, but but sex outside marriage has a great cost, more than more than we think. Right. more than we can give it crazy. It's not just physical act. Is not a physical act. And there's so much proof otherwise. I don't have time to go into that, but there's so many areas of proof that you go, yeah, that's not a physical act. Right. Or not merely a physical act. Super powerful. Super powerful. So let's that's why it's between a man and a woman and why God put restrictions on it. Yeah. For our help, not like you said, not to frustrate us and be like But to help keep us safe, to protect our heart. Yeah. It's a great way to teach it, not just, well, here's the rule, kids, but here's what can happen if you don't. Yes. Profound implications to it. Okay. Let's introduce the however or the I forget what what you read. Me too. This the start of verse thirty three. Nevertheless. Nevertheless. Yeah, nevertheless. That kind of caps off verse thirty three. He comes he c now he comes out of the mode of comparing Christ and the church to marriage to husband and the wife. And now he kind of makes this summary thing just about the husband and the wife. And this 33 is really a summary, if you will, of the whole thing. Right. so, however, or nonetheless, nevertheless, each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Okay, so l let me ask some easy stuff. I didn't give you heads up here, so hopefully I can You can you can go along with me. I mean you almost missed how long you got married. Yeah, I can always pause. Yeah, we can pause. Okay. So so how there are two commands given. What are the commands given in that verse? Love your own love your wife as you love yourself. Yeah. And wife must respect her husband. Okay. And to whom? Well, you already said it. So the husband is to love, the wife is to respect. These are profound statements because they give us insight. If we if we make the if we understand that God doesn't make rules arbitrarily, then we can go, It's probably not natural for a man to love his wife. Yeah. It also gives us insight into his design, right? Right. So he's like, Okay, I don't have to tell the wife to love because I kinda designed her to love and the the the man I'll have to tell him to respect because he speaks respect. With his friends and with in in his environment. Right. Right. so so we can kinda use some insight. do you mind flipping real quick to Genesis one twenty seven? Nope. I've kinda quoted it off and on or hinted at it, so let's just read that one section. Okay. 127 says, God created humankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them. Okay, so he created us, he created us in his image, and then he created us male and female. So he's hinting at that design differences there, right? Not just physical designs, but but everything. Our whole being is different. And he says we're both made in their image, but we're also made male and female. I think this is just me thinking out loud, but I think God beauty, God's nurturing side was put into to woman. I think God's strength and his courage, if you will, his his need to provide, or his desire to provide, that that is you know, a picture of the male, of the man and the masculinity. So I just bring the idea that we are in fact designed differently and made differently. And so we gotta learn to kind of see things from a other perspective. We gotta take our that that pink glasses or blue glasses we have and we gotta put on the other glasses so they they'll we don't filter out or take off so we don't filter out things, male things as And only see male things or female things, only see female things. So all right, the first command, let's just take these in order. First command is to love. the word there is agape, which means unconditional love. Means it's a sacrificial love. It's a love no matter what. So if your wife's having a good day, love her. Your wife's having a bad day, love her. It doesn't it doesn't give you the opportunity to go, well see you know she doesn't love me back or she doesn't respect me or she doesn't do this. There there's none of that in agape love. Right. Okay. It's the love God had for us while we were still his enemies and sent his son to become a sacrifice. sacrifice for us, right? So when it's given to the husband, not the not not the woman. Quick side note here, because I know what everybody's thinking. They're all thinking, yeah, but what about Titus 24? And I know everybody's not thinking about that. But Titus two four, the wives are told to love the husband. Or it's actually the the older women are told to teach the younger women how to love their husband. And but that love is phileo. That love is more like like. That love is a brotherly love. So that introduces a slightly different kind of love that does go with the man, and it's a shoulder to shoulder love. Agape is is a face to face love. Okay. So so men love your wives face to face. Ladies love your husbands shoulder to shoulder. And we'll talk about that here in just a second. I put here the h the husband is commanded to love for two reasons. We already kind of interested in one, it's not his normal way of seeing the world. Not that he's not capable of it, but it's not his primary language and his primary need. So he's the Bible's telling us, hey, shift or d we're not self centered anymore. The gospel gives us the ability and the Freedom to be centered on others and be centered on your wife. And she primarily speaks a language of love, and her top need is love. She requires respect too. I'm not saying she doesn't, but her top one is love. So that's why he's doing it. And he doesn't say the wife, because it's her normal way of seeing things. The next command is respect. So, and that's given to the wife. same questions. Why not give that command to the husband? Well, that's his natural way of seeing the world. That's his natural language, if you will. Watch a man with his friends. A man with his friends does shoulder to shoulder kind of stuff. Not the warm and fuzzy get right in your face kind of stuff. Okay, so We go fishing. Yeah. We go play golf. Right. We go shooting. Yeah. you know. You and I, when you when we go fishing, we'll go fishing all day out in the golf, right? Yeah. On your boat. Angela come back and go, Hey, well, what's Christy up to? How's Christy doing? What's Jeff say about Christy? What's what what's what's the what's their family? I'm Don't know. You were with him for 12 hours. Yeah. yeah, but I was fishing. We were washing the boat. We were traveling to and from, you know, but we were together and we were and if and we our friendship was strengthened. It just wasn't strengthened in the way Angela thought it would be strengthened. Right. And I'm like, I need to I need to call him, text him. I'll find your answer to these questions real quick. The other day we were here, we did something like that, and I had a question I was supposed to say, I don't know if you remember, I won't talk about it, but I had a question I was supposed to find out about you. So I texted you and you go, yeah, yeah, I go. I go, yeah, I forgot to ask that. I was gonna bring up you brought up fishing, that's a good one. You know, me and John we'll go shooting a lot, you know, and we'll shoot like 250 rounds and we'll go to a range and Angel do the same thing. I'm like, you know, we were doing something together. Except for we were on a range with a partition between us and we had hearing protection on it we were shooting. But in in mine and John's mine, we we went we spent the day together, right? Right. It's just not the way ladies spend the g day together and it's not what they talk about. All right. Yep. So anyway, so we're c the the wife has commanded respect for for the same two reasons. It's not our normal way of seeing it, and it is the husband's way of seeing it. So let me let me talk about I want to spend a little more time on respect. And here's a part where people might get a little uncomfortable because I'm gonna use a word that's not in our language. I'm gonna use the word unconditional respect. So agape, Greek is great. Greek's got many words for the word love. English we only have love, but we can look them up and figure out, the love that the man's supposed to love the wife is unconditional. But Greek nor English has a word for unconditional respect. But I think that's what's meant by it here. That can be a little uncomfortable because in our culture, respect is what you earn. You earn respect. You're not given respect unconditionally. And that's a little different. But but in our culture, in some facets, in some mentalities, we understand unconditional love and we see that that is good and right. But certainly it's not natural to even think of about it in terms of unconditional respect. And that's going to create some problems for the husband, we'll talk about here in just a minute. let's say. Let me make my argument that this is unconditional respect. I talked about there's only one Greek word in both I mean, only one word in both Greek and English, so there's not anything like there is for love. But here's a here's a question. If it was give your husband respect when he earns it, there wouldn't be a need for a command. Right. Right? It's only the fact that you're giving your husband respect unconditionally that the Lord needs to command it. Yeah. So that's my first inkling. They go, This is unconditional respect. In the same way that the husband is is commanded to love unconditionally. Look up if you don't mind, go to first Peter three one and two. Peter 3, 1 and 2. In the same way, wives, be subject to your own husbands. Then even if some are disobedient to the word, they will be won over without a word by the way you live, when they see your pure and reverent conduct. Okay, so submission, respect, let's kind of put those in the same idea there. So here a wife is told to respect her husband, even if he's a non-believing husband, or even if he's not a living according to the word. That sounds like even stronger unconditional respect. Right. So certainly if the Lord wants an a believing wife to unconditionally respect an unbelieving husband, mostly what I'm addressing here are two believers together. Certainly the believing husband should have the same respect. Respect afforded to him, right? Right. so anyway, I'll throw that out because so so we're talking about and that That mind shift I think is pretty huge. It is. it's also kind of huge in the man's vernacular how he might speak when he has when he feels disrespect. We'll talk about that here in just a second. But anyway. Okay. So maybe you're saying, okay, I got it, Randy, but our marriage has real problems. We have financial problems, we fight about we have emotional problems, sexual problems, in laws problems. some of those turn into screaming matches. We need real practical solutions. So after denying yourself, which is this is a subset, real love and respect is a subset of denying yourself. I think this interaction we're talking about between love and sex many times is the issue. It may manifest itself as in other areas, financially or or emotionally or sexually or or any other any other kind of interaction. but but most everything is really a fruit of the husband not having a sense of he's respected and or the wife not having a sense that she is loved. So in other words, one of the spouses or maybe both not following this. And here's what I'm one more time bring out. This is not the natural way that we are set up. Your wife many the wife many times will feel like, I don't know what his problem is. I love him dearly. I tell him all the time. I show him all the time. What does he think all these things I do for him is? And the husband might might say something similar. I respect her. and I don't know why she's mess or you know, upset with me, because I treat her right, I provide for, I go I work all day, I I I, you know, do this or that. So I put here the issue is not the issue. The real real issue is this. I'll just read what I wrote here. A wife has deep-rooted need to be and feel loved. When she does not feel loved, she communicates it to her husband in a way that feels like contempt or disrespect for him. Yes. So let me read that again. A wife has a deep-rooted need to be and feel loved. When she does not feel loved, she communicates it to her husband in a way that feels like contempt and disrespect to him. The The husband is the same. The husband has a deep rooted need to be respected wise by his wife. He reacts to feeling disrespect in ways that feel unloving to his wife. So I'll read that again. A husband has a deep rooted need to be respected by his wife, and he reacts to feeling disrespect. in ways that feel unloving to his wife. And I didn't come up with this the and I meant to go look up his name I forgot but it's a book called Love and Respect I read about 15, 20 years But the crazy cycle is what he says. He says It's a cycle and I don't have a a a board to draw on here, but she feels unloved. She reacts this thing of a circle with four points on it. The top at the 12 o'clock position put she feels unloved. And then follow an arrow around to the three o'clock position and say she reacts with what feels like disrespect to him. And then we keep following the circle with the arrow going clockwise to the six o'clock position. He feels disrespected. And then we go up to the nine o'clock position going clockwise. And it says he reacts with what feels unloving. And then it goes right back to the 12 o'clock position. fe she feels unloved. He calls that the trick the crazy cycle. Yeah. Where it just feeds off each other. Right. And this can come out in arguments or this can be just at the gut level even and and and many times it's it's hard for both of them if they don't understand fully what's going on. It's hard for either one of them to to put it into English. Yeah. And sa get that. So let me g I got an example. He forgets her birthday or doesn't prepare properly for it. What and how does she feel? She feels unloved. How does she handle it? Well somebody who feels who's primarily speaking love, who needs who feels unloved, they need to reconnect. They need openness. So how does someone that has those needs and and and needs to fix that approach problems? They the wife wants to get it all out in the open. She needs a remo an emotional release. It just is in your face. Let's you and I get face to face, be open and sort this out. What does somebody right in his face feel like? It feels like disrespect. Right. if she's a little bit animated and fired up, that even adds to it, right? Mm-hmm. Keep in mind she didn't feel loved because somebody did, and now he's in her f she's in her face trying to fix the love. Mm-hmm. Because that's the that's what she she speaks. As I as I'm if you go watch a man with his friends, he's probably never he's probably only spoken to like that by one individual in his whole life, and it's his wife. The men don't speak to each other like that. It's interesting to watch if you watch women If they're in an argument or have a disagreement versus watching men, women want to get face to face. They want to get it all out in the open. Let's get it to resolution. Let's solve this thing. Let's get it all the way to conclusion. A man is more likely to go, okay, let's create space. Let's you go your way, I'll go my way. Let's let time and space kind of just fix it. Right. Men are able to forgive and forget and move on. It we don't have to in English get it all worked out. Right. You know, we'll come back if we have a little dispute, we give each other space, we come back to church and Sunday school, we do nuts and we both know everything's good. Right. You know, and and and and w we don't have to bring it up again. Right. It's it's it's it's the different Between arguing when your primary language is respect and arguing your primary language is is love. but now we got two people living together in a covenant relationship that it's it's not quite right there, okay. Another example, he's in the mood, okay, and the response is not tonight, and that can feel like disrespect. How does he handle it? Creating space, right? You know, the honorable thing to do is to stonewall it, not not purposely, but just create some space. Go in the other room. Get quiet. Don't share a whole bunch. Right? Retire to the TV. how does that feel to her? That feels unloving. Yep. And separation. Yeah. And and she wants to go get face to face to resolve the lo to reconnect the love connection. He wants to create space to reconnect the respect connection. And so that can be Interesting. Or that can lead to some confusion. Here's some things we got some cultural things working against us too. Because most of our culture kind of understands un unconditional love and understands we should have bad bad days and you should love me anyway. and certainly in the church that's right because we understand that's the way we're loved by by Christ, right? So we've given the woman tools and language to express when she's not feeling loved unconditionally. We haven't done that for the husband because in our minds, respect is something earned. So if you haven't earned respect, there's there's no need for you to feel disrespected or even we don't really need to hear from you if you're trying to express that you've been disrespected if you haven't earned it. Right. We haven't given those tools to the man. And the and the man in many of the relationships is not the one that that has the best grasp of how to express his emotions anyway. And so, many times in a relationship, if the man were to express the sense of being disrespected, it would come across as arrogant, it would come across as selfish, whereas if the wife expresses not feeling unconditionally loved, that's just right. And she should be able to do that. Right. But now if we turn around and we make respect and go, it's unconditional because it's a command, then you go, okay. We ought to be able to come up with language for the man that would say, Hey, I feel disrespected. Yeah. right here. and anyway, I think I'll go off on a quick tangent here. If you and I you we we were both fighter pilots, so we'd know what it likes to wear an auction mask. Picture us having a a long cord on that thing talking and somebody steps on our oxygen mask or steps on the hose. So we can't breathe. What how what's our reaction? Take off the mask. Yeah, take off the mask, push the guy who's standing on our on our thing. Do something immediately. Yeah. Right? And maybe violently. Right. if it's if I can't get the mask off, say it and I'm pushing, you know. We can say something like if we if we come to an agreement between a marriage and Angela and I start started as this and we we actually haven't done this, but but you can use some other words, but hey, you're standing on my air hose. In other words, you're I you're making me react. I'm I'm feeling the need to react immediately here, but you may not realize it. Your foot, you may not even maybe got boots on, you can't even sense that you're standing on the air hose. Maybe your your mind is not really understand respect. Right. Or understand love, but you're standing on one of my primary needs and we need to talk about it. Yeah. So whatever that verbiage would be, is that's good. Say, hey man, you're standing on my something say say I'm feeling something that you're probably blind to. Right. Yeah. Go ahead. Well I was just saying, yeah, you are you yeah, you got me agitated about something like you said, the air hose or whoo, that got me kind of fired up. Yeah, yeah. Be able to express it. Yeah, that's good. That helps. Yeah. Yeah. Like well, I have said with Christy and I when we'll have a discussion is like, you know, this is what I heard you say and that kind of fired me up. Or an and we can talk about it like that. Yeah, be able to use Didn't mean it like that or you know Yeah, they almost I mean, they us, we almost never mean it like that, right? Right. I'm trying to respect her. Right. When I pull away. She's trying to love me when she gets right in my face, say. Right. Anyway, yeah, so there's a little bit of and we'll talk about that that's a good transition to the next phase to talk about how to break this cycle. let me just review the cycle. She feels unloved, she reacts in a way that feels disrespecting, he feels disrespected, he reacts in a way that feels unloving, she feels unloved, and around and around it goes. Okay. So the the idea, there's two ideas there. One is to break the when you find yourself in that mode, is to break it. Because here's the reality. The is the wife loved? Absolutely. In a Christian marriage, she's loved. Is the husband respected? Yes. Okay, so that's step one for us just to kind of come to an agreement in our own minds and between us and our spouses that okay, I love you dearly and she respects me, unconditionally. So that's that's the first clue. The next clue is to decode what's happening. Take off your blue s blue glasses that's filtering out everything that that you that you can't see that's feminine, her to take off her pink glasses and quit filtering everything through her feminine mindset and to interrupt this this cycle. So when the when you mess up and your wife responds to you because she feels unloved and it feels like disrespect, just go, no, she's not disrespecting you. She's trying to correct the love. She's trying to reconnect. Right. And just go, okay. So now do what do the opposite of what you want to do. Move closer. Connect. Get face to face. Let her get face to face. T see, because Because I'm fully loved, I can s I can take my need for respect or my need to be offended by something and put it to the side and just one hopefully get rid of that forever, the need or the idea of being offended, and just l and just meet her where she is. Yep. And go right to her. Move closer. Yeah. Not move farther away. And the wife needs to do the same thing. Just stop and reinterpret. Yeah. It's taking that ground from Satan. Yep. You're not getting in the middle of it. Exactly. Take the ground away by, like you said, interrupting the cycle and yeah. Yeah. And the wife can interrupt it by instead of hearing something unloving, hearing something respectful. Give him a little time. Sure. If if he's upset and he's creating space, let him create space. It's not unloving. Right. He's just reacting in a way that that he needs to react or that he has been taught to react and is designed within him this 'cause he's speaking the language of respect. He's he's actually respecting you. He's not unloving you. He loves you, but he's also trying to respect you by just creating some space, let everything die down. So whoever, you know, I don't know who initiates that, but but both of you can stop the the crazy cycle. and then and then kind of finishing up here, we're at an hour here, but So I won't spend a whole lot of time on this next part, but this is what the author would call the energizing cycle. You know, instead of waiting for the crazy cycle to get going or about to get going and put the brakes on it, be proactive. Jeff: Hello, this is Jeff. When we recorded this podcast, it went about an hour and 20 minutes long, which we thought was a little bit much for one podcast. So we decided to split it into two. We made the break here at the end of the crazy cycle so we can jump back into how to fix the crazy cycle for the next episode. Thanks again for joining us, and we hope you have a great day.